Student spends night with 20 snakes

A UNIVERSITY student spent six hours in a room with 20 snakes, some of them the most dangerous in the world.

Romario Gonsalves, 20, is a firstyear student at the University of Johannesburg, where he is studying environmental science.

“I have always had an interest in the environment and saw this as an opportunity to educate people,” he said.

Gonsalves was part of the snake show on Saturday night at Apex Predators Python Park, 9km outside East London on the N6, when he lay on a bed in a room with several species of snakes, including pythons.

Seventy members of the public bought tickets to watch Gonsalves with the snakes through a glass window.

“We want to prove to people that snakes are not as dangerous as they think. About 90% of the people attacked by snakes were trying to kill them and so the snakes became defensive and retaliated,” he said.

“Some of these snakes can kill you within minutes, but if you do not try to harm them first they will not hurt you,” he said.

“Because people do not have an understanding of snakes they think I have a death wish for doing this. That is exactly what I want to prove people wrong on,” Gonsalves said.

Snake Park owner Deon Nell has a king cobra on display, which he says is rare in Africa.

“He is named after the Zulu king, King Shaka,” he said. “This [snakehandling] is an art. It takes years of practice and dealing with the animals to create familiarity.”

Nell added that he did not wear protective gear when interacting with the snakes.

Gonsalves said: “The atmosphere was quite relaxed, except it was very hot in there … As expected, nothing happened to me. The kinds of snakes included Burmese pythons, boa constrictors, ridley rat snakes and Madagascan ground boas.”

He said he would do it again with venomous snakes. —